The present study replicated the original evaluation of the Howard Street tutoring model (Morris,... more The present study replicated the original evaluation of the Howard Street tutoring model (Morris, Shaw, & Perney, 1990), an intervention for struggling readers in second and third grade. It also evaluated the effectiveness of supervised paraprofessionals (Title I aides) in delivering that tutorial. For an entire school year, teachers or paraprofessionals, working under the supervision of a reading specialist, tutored 40 struggling readers twice per week for 45 minutes per session. The tutored group's instruction included guided reading in leveled texts with controlled vocabulary, word study, and reading for fluency. The control group's instruction, which was provided daily in a small-group context, featured guided reading and phonics work in the classroom basal reader. Analysis of covariance was used to compare the performance of the two groups on several end-of-year reading measures. Results showed that, overall, the tutored group outperformed the control group on each of the posttest reading measures (standardized and informal). In addition, the subset of students tutored by paraprofessionals outperformed the control students. In fact, results indicated that in the structured tutoring context, paraprofessional tutors were almost as effective as certified teachers.
Abstract 1. Examined the hypothesized developmental relationship between early reading and spelli... more Abstract 1. Examined the hypothesized developmental relationship between early reading and spelling ability by comparing 1st graders' spelling at the beginning of the school year to their reading achievement at the end of the year. 75 Ss from 4 classes participated in the ...
In this study we examined the ability of 6 kindergarten prereading skills to predict later readin... more In this study we examined the ability of 6 kindergarten prereading skills to predict later reading achievement. The prereading skills of 102 children were assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of kindergarten, and reading achievement was assessed at the end of ...
... Level" Darrell Morris Linda Blanton William E. Blanton ... Second Grade ... more ... Level" Darrell Morris Linda Blanton William E. Blanton ... Second Grade Marcus's Spellings ship ship (c) try try (c) year YERE chase CHAS float FLOT Third Grade scream SCEM knock NOC caught COTE noise NOS careful CRFOL Marcus misspelled all of the third-grade words. ...
In the second week of school, Ms. Baker stands before a large easel chart in her first grade clas... more In the second week of school, Ms. Baker stands before a large easel chart in her first grade classroom and leads her 23 students in choral reading a class-dictated experience story. (Note: Ms. Baker is a pseudonym for an experienced teacher whom the author worked with over the course of a school year.
Children's awareness of phoneme units within spoken words is considered to play an important ... more Children's awareness of phoneme units within spoken words is considered to play an important role in their learning to read an alphabetic language. However, it is not clear as to when and how phoneme awareness actually develops in the beginning reading process. The present study briefly reviews two competing theoretical positions and then poses a testable question. Does there exist a relationship between beginning readers' awareness of word units in text and their ability to segment words into phonemes? In two separate experiments, a concept of word task and two phoneme awareness tasks were administered to beginning first grade readers. The concept of word task involved finger-point reading a four-line memorized rhyme and then identifying individual words within the rhyme. The phoneme awareness measures included a structured phoneme segmentation test and a phonemic analysis of the children's invented spellings. Results in both experiments revealed a significant relations...
Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tas... more Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tasks (phoneme segmentation fluency [PSF], nonsense word fluency [NWF], and oral reading fluency [ORF]) with that of three alternative tasks drawn from the field of reading (phonemic spelling [phSPEL], word recognition-timed [WR-t], and graded passage reading [grPASS), an oral reading fluency measure). Two cohorts of students (n = 319) were assessed with the aforementioned tasks multiple times across a four-year period—middle of kindergarten through end of third grade. The results were clear and closely replicated in the two cohorts: (a) phSPEL (moderate) outperformed DIBELS PSF (weak to moderate) in predicting future orthographic-unit processing; (b) WR-t (very strong) outperformed DIBELS NWF (moderate) in predicting future oral reading fluency; and (c) DIBELS ORF and grPASS were equally good predictors (moderately strong) of future reading comprehension.
Abstract This study addressed the concept of reading instructional level. First, we reviewed the ... more Abstract This study addressed the concept of reading instructional level. First, we reviewed the history of the concept, including some recent criticisms of its validity (Schwanenflugel & Knapp, 2017; Shanahan, 2014). Next, we examined, from an instructional-level perspective, the oral reading performance of 248 third graders. We divided the sample into quartiles (based on third-grade reading rate) and tested for between-quartile differences in the students' reading of second-, third-, and fourth-grade passages. A major finding was that the lowest quartile differed significantly from the other quartiles in oral reading accuracy and rate, showing, at best, a second-grade print-processing level at the end of third grade. Finally, we considered how our findings raise old—and still controversial—questions about the best way to provide instruction to low-achieving readers in the elementary grades.
The present study replicated the original evaluation of the Howard Street tutoring model (Morris,... more The present study replicated the original evaluation of the Howard Street tutoring model (Morris, Shaw, & Perney, 1990), an intervention for struggling readers in second and third grade. It also evaluated the effectiveness of supervised paraprofessionals (Title I aides) in delivering that tutorial. For an entire school year, teachers or paraprofessionals, working under the supervision of a reading specialist, tutored 40 struggling readers twice per week for 45 minutes per session. The tutored group's instruction included guided reading in leveled texts with controlled vocabulary, word study, and reading for fluency. The control group's instruction, which was provided daily in a small-group context, featured guided reading and phonics work in the classroom basal reader. Analysis of covariance was used to compare the performance of the two groups on several end-of-year reading measures. Results showed that, overall, the tutored group outperformed the control group on each of the posttest reading measures (standardized and informal). In addition, the subset of students tutored by paraprofessionals outperformed the control students. In fact, results indicated that in the structured tutoring context, paraprofessional tutors were almost as effective as certified teachers.
Abstract 1. Examined the hypothesized developmental relationship between early reading and spelli... more Abstract 1. Examined the hypothesized developmental relationship between early reading and spelling ability by comparing 1st graders' spelling at the beginning of the school year to their reading achievement at the end of the year. 75 Ss from 4 classes participated in the ...
In this study we examined the ability of 6 kindergarten prereading skills to predict later readin... more In this study we examined the ability of 6 kindergarten prereading skills to predict later reading achievement. The prereading skills of 102 children were assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of kindergarten, and reading achievement was assessed at the end of ...
... Level" Darrell Morris Linda Blanton William E. Blanton ... Second Grade ... more ... Level" Darrell Morris Linda Blanton William E. Blanton ... Second Grade Marcus's Spellings ship ship (c) try try (c) year YERE chase CHAS float FLOT Third Grade scream SCEM knock NOC caught COTE noise NOS careful CRFOL Marcus misspelled all of the third-grade words. ...
In the second week of school, Ms. Baker stands before a large easel chart in her first grade clas... more In the second week of school, Ms. Baker stands before a large easel chart in her first grade classroom and leads her 23 students in choral reading a class-dictated experience story. (Note: Ms. Baker is a pseudonym for an experienced teacher whom the author worked with over the course of a school year.
Children's awareness of phoneme units within spoken words is considered to play an important ... more Children's awareness of phoneme units within spoken words is considered to play an important role in their learning to read an alphabetic language. However, it is not clear as to when and how phoneme awareness actually develops in the beginning reading process. The present study briefly reviews two competing theoretical positions and then poses a testable question. Does there exist a relationship between beginning readers' awareness of word units in text and their ability to segment words into phonemes? In two separate experiments, a concept of word task and two phoneme awareness tasks were administered to beginning first grade readers. The concept of word task involved finger-point reading a four-line memorized rhyme and then identifying individual words within the rhyme. The phoneme awareness measures included a structured phoneme segmentation test and a phonemic analysis of the children's invented spellings. Results in both experiments revealed a significant relations...
Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tas... more Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tasks (phoneme segmentation fluency [PSF], nonsense word fluency [NWF], and oral reading fluency [ORF]) with that of three alternative tasks drawn from the field of reading (phonemic spelling [phSPEL], word recognition-timed [WR-t], and graded passage reading [grPASS), an oral reading fluency measure). Two cohorts of students (n = 319) were assessed with the aforementioned tasks multiple times across a four-year period—middle of kindergarten through end of third grade. The results were clear and closely replicated in the two cohorts: (a) phSPEL (moderate) outperformed DIBELS PSF (weak to moderate) in predicting future orthographic-unit processing; (b) WR-t (very strong) outperformed DIBELS NWF (moderate) in predicting future oral reading fluency; and (c) DIBELS ORF and grPASS were equally good predictors (moderately strong) of future reading comprehension.
Abstract This study addressed the concept of reading instructional level. First, we reviewed the ... more Abstract This study addressed the concept of reading instructional level. First, we reviewed the history of the concept, including some recent criticisms of its validity (Schwanenflugel & Knapp, 2017; Shanahan, 2014). Next, we examined, from an instructional-level perspective, the oral reading performance of 248 third graders. We divided the sample into quartiles (based on third-grade reading rate) and tested for between-quartile differences in the students' reading of second-, third-, and fourth-grade passages. A major finding was that the lowest quartile differed significantly from the other quartiles in oral reading accuracy and rate, showing, at best, a second-grade print-processing level at the end of third grade. Finally, we considered how our findings raise old—and still controversial—questions about the best way to provide instruction to low-achieving readers in the elementary grades.
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